Alone
by Smirking Menace
Summary: Harry Potter has always been alone, and he have learned to like it that way.


**Disclaimer:** _Everything you recognize that is not part of the real world belong to JK Rowling._

**Summary:** _Harry Potter has always been alone, and he have learned to like it that way._

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**Alone**

_**By Smirking Menace**_

Part One: Childhood

Being left like a bottle of milk on a complete stranger in the start of November when one was merely one year old was not something that was a good foundation for an healthy childhood, never mind the fact that said one year old was with an untreated wound on his forehead left behind by the murderer of his parent and held a piece of the mutilated soul of the said murderer.

All of this could have been healed by a loving family and a trip to an easily found healer but this was the remnant of war that made the old man that instigated it all wary of saying that he was out of his depths as he was thought as all-knowing. The wizard, as he was indeed imbued with magical powers since birth, was one of the pillar of the magical society of Great Britain and took into himself to take care of his dead student's toddler as best as he know how at the time; by dumping the young Boy-Who-Lived, as the toddler was soon called, on his last relatives doorstep one cold November night.

Harry Potter, as the tiny toddler was named, had to use the better part of his budding magical powers to stay alive that night, as the blanket and the basket he was bundled in were not enough to properly combat the chilly early morning air. So the boy fought for his life the only way he knew how: my using his innate magic to regulate his inner temperature. That method was clearly visible however, and made him flow with faerie fire as if he was in the middle of a warm flame.

His estranged aunt, Petunia Dursley, found him nearly blue and glowing in the morning as she fetched the morning's newspaper, a sight that frightened her so much that she screamed shrilly, badly startling the freezing boy that promptly wailed with her in a great cacophony of sound in the otherwise silent suburban neighbourhood.

Coming back to her sense by the sight of one of her curious fellow housewives, Petunia quickly took the baby and brought him and his basket to one of her house's many bathrooms. Reaching her destination, she quickly filled the bathtub with hot water, undressed her nephew and dropped him in the water without a second thought, more worried about what would happen if someone learned about a dead baby on her doorstep than for the welfare of who she was certain was her freak of a sister's son. He had her eyes and had that freak of a husband of hers horrible hair, for god's sake!

Briefly checking if the little freak was still alive, as she soon started to call the young Harry, Petunia was reassured that the boy took a less freakish appearance, becoming rose skinned and had a notable lack of fire about his person. Satisfied, she took to babe from the bath and dried him with a towel managing to touch him as barely as possible before dressing him in his previous clothes who were fortunately dry. Only then did she notice the heavy envelope confirming her darkest fear; She was stuck with the little freak.

Deciding to put the boy out of her sight for a little while longer, the woman but the toddler back into his basket and stuffed him in the cupboard under the stairs where he would pass the majority of his childhood. Satisfied that her nephew was not able to do anything freakish to her rather narrow sensibilities, Petunia continued her beloved routine, picking up the discarded newspaper and starting to make her family's breakfast. Her Vernon and Dudders needed strong meals, after all!

Young Harry Potter laid in the dark, forgotten until he cried in hunger or when his nappy needed to be changed, not understanding how he could have found himself without any love as his previous home was full of affection for him. Confused and sad, the young bow first tried to attract his new caretakers' attention but after merely negative results of screams and neglect he stopped trying to reach out to his relatives.

And so the boy grew, quiet and sullen for a child but with an impressive amount of independence and resourcefulness. At four he was able to sneak out of his cupboard and steal some much needed food from his relatives larder, confident that the blame would lay on his much larger cousin as the other boy was allowed "small snacks" during the middle of the night.

As the boy grew, more and more responsibilities gathered on his young shoulders as everything seemed to be his fault according to the Dursley family. As his relatives lounged about in the house, the young now five years old wizard cleaned, swept, weeded and trimmed Four, Privet Drive into a perfectly normal household with perfect cleanliness and a perfect garden. It was eerie to see.

The boy was alone in everything he did, from schoolwork where his tyrannical cousin put his best effort in leaving him friendless to his home life where his relatives ignored him at best and abused him at worse. It was a normal state to be alone, for the young wizard and he soon got used to it to the point of not even acknowledging any attempt by others to connect with him.

Slowly, Harry became used to his fate of being a freak and used it to his advantage, finding that social norm no longer applied to him and thus became a "problem child", as they called him. He stole, lied, skipped class and even started to talk back to his relatives, using his sharp wits against their more brutish strength. That method combined by his ability to evade hits and his speed became a boon against his cousin and his brutish gang of bullies. By the time he was ten the idiots learned to leave him alone.

Then came the Hogwarts letter.

As he fetched the Dursley's mail, Harry found a letter that was addressed to him. Wary, he hid it until he was safe in the garden that afternoon alone once more and read. What he found left him warily hopeful that he could one day run away from his pitiful life and live on his own comfortably. Sneaking back into the house and snatching a pen from under his aunt's nose, he quickly scrawled a reply on the response parchment included in the letter and found an owl.

Saying to himself that he had nothing to lose, he gave the letter to the bird and told in to bring it to Hogwarts. Surprised was he when the owl nodded once and left to the north, as if it had understood him!

The boy didn't know that his behaviour was in part influenced by the horcrux in his forehead that urged him to go ahead with the scheme, the boy merely thinking that it was a whim that he suddenly had after seeing an opportunity of independence.

His letter asked many question, like where the school could be located and where he could get the needed supplies and funds for his tutelage.

On his birthday, a few days later, a witch named Minerva McGonagall knocked on the Dursley's door and a new life started for Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived.

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**AN: I know, another story? But you never even truly started the others! Well, this one would not let me be and since I have a small writer's blocks for the others I hope this will help them get back on track soon, so bear with me!**


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